WASHINGTON—U.S. Senator John Boozman (R-AR) secured public support from Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General John Caine for several Natural State military missions and support capacities during a Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee hearing. He also expressed concerns about the potential for drone attacks on domestic military assets in light of the latest Ukrainian operation against Russia’s air force.

Boozman highlighted the recent graduation of two Polish pilots at Ebbing Air National Guard Base in Fort Smith, the first to complete the F-35 Foreign Military Sales pilot training, and emphasized the program’s importance.

“[This is] an accomplishment we’re very excited to see repeated,” Boozman said before inviting Hegseth to explain “the importance of training our partners and allies on American systems and how that enables mission readiness and deterrence around the world.” 

“Our ability to project power by, with and through allies is one of the most important force multipliers that we have. The training of their people, and military-to-military training, creates enduring bonds over generations that we’re then able to leverage for future capability. I’m encouraged to hear about those two graduations. I know it keeps our defense industrial base robust and also projects capabilities to allies and partners,” Hegseth responded. 

The senator then addressed the depletion of munitions amid conflicts in Ukraine and Israel while raising the need to adequately re-stockpile this capability through our organic industrial base as well as through private industry efforts, including in south Arkansas.

“I had the opportunity of taking your predecessor to Camden, Arkansas, to see the great work our industry partners are doing to help solve the problem, however, the Department’s organic industrial base also fills important capability gaps,” Boozman said. “Where can we invest more to fix that?” he continued. 

“One of my jobs as Chairman is to make sure the youngsters have the combat capability they need, at scale, before they need it. My hope is that we can raise everybody’s capacity through changing the culture not only in munitions production but across the entire national and defense industrial base, encourage competition to keep the prices down, write better contracts and increase the overall capacity,”Caine answered.

Boozman has repeatedly championed investments in Camden and the industries that produce some of the world’s most effective weapon systems and munitions, including recent expansions by RTX, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin and Aerojet Rocketdyne – an L3Harris Technologies company. 

The senator, who chairs the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Subcommittee, also took the opportunity to underscore how vulnerable U.S. installations remain to potential attacks and asked Hegseth how Ukraine’s successful Operation Spider’s Web has changed the way we defend military infrastructure and installations from emerging threats like armed drones. 

“Even before that operation, it’s something we put on the forefront of our planning. Cheaper, commercially available drones with small explosives represent a new threat. That day, we met to evaluate that we’re doing enough. It’s a critical reality of the modern battlefield that we have a responsibility to address,” Hegseth explained.